The Climate
The circumstance that emissions of carbon dioxide increase the earth’s temperature has been long time known. As early as 1896, the Swedish physicist and chemist Svante Arrenius was the first scientist to publish the theory that the earth’s average temperature will increase due to mankind’s burning of fossil fuels. The model Arrhenius created is still in use. In 1903, Svante Arrhenius was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
In 1958, American scientist Charles Keeling established a research base on the mountain Mauna Loa, Hawaii (3,000 meters above sea level) to measure the chemical composition of the atmosphere. In 1960, Keeling was able to show that there was a seasonal variation in the carbon dioxide content in the atmosphere. In spring and early summer, the carbon dioxide content in the atmosphere was lower because the growth of photosynthesis absorbs carbon dioxide. In the autumn, the carbon dioxide content rose because the vegetation took up less. The graph for the measurements thus took on a sawtoothed appearance.
The Keeling curve above also showed that the carbon dioxide content in the atmosphere increased over time. It is considered one of several scientific proofs that human carbon dioxide emissions cause an increase in the Earth’s average temperature. The graph below shows the increase in the Earth’s surface temperature between 1880 – 2023 compared to the average temperature during the years 1901 – 2000. In 2023, the increase was 1.2 degrees Co above the average temperature.
The rate of the temperature increase since 1980 has led to repeated alarms by scientists that the Earth’s temperature risks rising to levels that set off chain reactions which risk making life on our Earth difficult. Sharply rising sea levels, regional droughts, floods and severe weather phenomena can uproot the conditions on which our civilization is built.
In 1988, the American scientist James Hansen testified in Senate hearings that NASA was 99 percent certain that the warming of the Earth was due to the increase in greenhouse gases and was not a random change. A greenhouse effect had been detected and our climate is changing because of this.
